So you know what I think are cool? Monsters. I personally don’t think any of these cryptids are likely to be real, but they’re cool and I like them. But even if they’re just imaginary, they’re still really interesting to think about, and make for all sorts of great stories and are just well, fun. So I decided to do makeup looks inspired by a few of my favorite cryptozoological beasties, and so here those looks are along with exhaustive lists of what I used to create them.The Chupacabra:

Chupacabra translates literally to goat sucker (so named because it apparently sucks the blood of livestock, and seems to prefer goats, I guess?).

Hairless blueish coyote/wolf hybrids have been discovered in Mexico and south Texas where reports of the chupacabra are most common, which although incapable of sucking blood, are definitely creepy-looking enough to spark reports of a monstrous creature.

Reports of the chupacabra's appearance vary wildly, but generally it tends to be blueish, spiky, and have glowing red eyes.So I went with a blue eyeshadow with sharp angular liner, sharp contouring and a bloody red lip (also I photoshopped my eyes red because a chupacabra isn't as much fun without red eyes)

The eyeshadow is was done with MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack in the crease, NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk on the browbone and inner corner of the eye, with MAC Deep Truth over the black, and Earth, Uranus (insert chupacabras having anal sex joke here, or just picture them doing that for a moment) and Neptune from the BH Cosmetics Galaxy Palette to blend and on the lid, with Wet n’ Wild powder shadow in white on the highlight. The eyeliner is Stila Stay All Day Liner Pen because it is ALWAYS Stila Stay All Day Liner Pen.

The lip is Revlon Fire and Ice (a classic!) in the center with a dab of NYX Butter Gloss in Cherry Pie in the very center to give it that “just sucked a goat” look, with OCC liptar in Black Metal Dahlia around the edges to really sell the bloody effect

The face is Dr. Jart and Face Atelier White Foundation over Time Balm Primer, with Amazing Cosmetics Concealer, and everything else as usual with extra contour.

The Loch Ness Monster:

The Loch Ness Monster is an awesome monster, a hulking underwater beast that lives in frigid water in a (not-so) isolated part of Scotland. Nessie is probably my favorite cryptid. Something about the idea of a chilly lake in Scotland with a monster in it just speaks to me somehow.

I tried to keep these looks kind of wearable, but brow ridges called out to me and so I painted myself some fucking knobbly brow ridges (but if you want to wear this on a more normal night out, you can just switch them out for normal eyebrows). This look was a bastard to photograph, partially because I used glitter, which is incredibly hard to photograph and I got interrupted by a sub who wanted to talk about my boobs and lost my light. Still, I think I pulled it off.

The lipstick is Indigo Bridge by Portland Black Lipstick Co (their lipsticks are AMAZING) for sexy lizard lips (I know lizards aren’t amphibians, lizards are reptiles and Nessie if Nessie were real would probably not be a reptile, but sometimes one must sacrifice accuracy for alliteration).

Ah, Bigfoot, king of cryptids, gigantic, hairy, ape-like, and beloved of reality TV. I wanted to make sure at least one of these looks was really and truly wearable as a day to day look for most people, and when I think wearable, I think Bigfoot.

After looking at a bunch of images of Bigfoot, I noticed that he generally has these really gorgeous downturned bedroom eyes and so I went with that and neutrals and kind of a bold brow and well it’s kind of like Bigfoot/Brigitte Bardot. But here's why it totally makes sense. If Bigfoot were real, Bigfoot would be this huge, but incredibly elusive ape which might or might not even be there, so soft pretty slightly no makeupy makeup with a bit of retro drama and sexiness is just like a gigantic ape you're not sure exists.

For the eyes I used NYX Pencil in Milk on the browbone and inner corner of the eye, and Too Faced Champagne Shadow Insurance Primer on my lid and crease. Then I brought out the Naked 2 Palette and applied a mixture of Snakebite and Pistol to my crease, applied Chopper to my lid, and blended it out with YDK and Bootycall before sweeping Pacifica Eyeshadow in White to the very inner corner of my eye and in my browbone. I filled in my brows with Snakebite. I used Urban Decay Perversion Mascara, and 24/7 Perversion Liner Pencil on my bottom lashline and smoked it out, and applied Stila Liquid Liner Stay All Day Pen in oh fuck it, you know which one I use by now and winged it out downward to create a sort of bedroom eyed effect.

Then I put on a fur coat and a wig to really sell the whole “Bigfoot” thing.

Mothman:

So, Mothman, the red-eyed harbinger of doom from West Virginia. Accounts of Mothman's appearance are pretty varied, and tend to be given by people who saw a brief glimpse of something at night, but Mothman's two consistent features are huge red eyes and wings, so I decided to take inspiration from those gigantic glowing eyes and do a sort of big eyed Twiggy-esque ’60s dolly thing with a sort of tiny 1920s Clara Bow/actual moth style mouth. (That’s not what actual moth mouths look like but it’s the closest I could get without growing a proboscis). Then I panicked that it wasn’t going to read mothy enough and tried to paint a moth on my face… which I then had to have my illustrator husband fix because it didn’t look like a moth at all, because the ability to do makeup does not translate into the ability to draw moths so…that's the story of my face moth.

Anyway, I think Mothman is an awesome monster even if he is probably just a barn owl. There's just something wonderfully evocative about a shadowy nocturnal thing that flies through the night on silent wings, only its glowing eyes showing up in the darkness.

For the eyes: Primer potion all over, NYX pencil in Milk, and the Second Officer cream blush from The Balm Voyage palette. Then I applied Makeup Forever shadow in Morello Cherry to my eyelid, and blended it out with the hot pink from the BH Cosmetics Brazil Palette and the pale pink from the Wet n’ Wild Floral Values Paletteand swept white Wet N’ Wild over the highlight areas, creating a rounded shape, then I filled in my brows with black powder shadow, applied liquid liner top and bottom (same liner as always) not winging it out this time and put on mascara and false eyelashes. I used Ardell lashes in 118 on top, and 308 on the bottom (worn with the longest lashes at the center of the eye).